There is a wide variety of commercially available shower caddies, for holding things within a shower or bathtub enclosure. There are two essential types of shower caddies: hanging caddies and pole caddies.
A typical hanging shower caddy has an upper end loop which is shaped to hang from a shower nozzle which projects from the wall of a shower enclosure. One or more baskets, or shelves, are attached to legs which descend from the opposing sides of the loop, at one or more different elevations, to provide one or more horizontal surfaces upon which may be placed toiletry articles used within the shower enclosure. A typical shelf has an outer fence to retain articles. Typically the shelf depth, that is the projection of the shelf from the plane of the legs and loop, is greater than the height of the outer fence of the shelf. Some examples of hanging shower caddies are shown in U.S. Patents, as follows: Walker No. D473,411, Snell No. D479,073, Snider No. D558,657 and Snider No. D572,061.
A typical hanging shower caddy might be one foot wide and two feet or more high. Most prior art caddies have shelves which are welded to the rest of the structure and thus they cannot be readily changed with respect to choice of shelf by a user. Nor can the shelves be cleaned other than cleaning them in place or as part of the whole structure.
The predominate styles of commercial shower caddies have shapes that are ill suited for economic shipping and storage, owing to the fixed shelves and a typically long loop which enables the shelves to be at a convenient height to the user within a shower enclosure. Thus, packaging for displaying the caddy or shipping the caddy must have a commensurate size.
Some of these limitations have been addressed. For example: Flinger U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,543 shows a hanging shower caddy where the shelves have hooks which engage welded horizontal rails on a ladder-like back, so the shelves can installed at a desired elevation and can be removed when desired. Didehvar et al. Patent Publication 2012/0091088 shows a hanging shower caddy where the shelves are affixed to the back by means of plastic fittings that are slidable in what amounts to tracks formed by adjacent vertical wires. It appears the shelves can be lifted vertically from the track. Yu Patent Publication 2004/0188369 shows a hanging caddy where the shelves are foldable for shipment.
Pole caddies comprise one or more shelves which are cantilevered from a single vertical member, the pole, which typically is positioned in the corner of a bathtub enclosure. Often, the pole is spring loaded between the ceiling and a lower surface, usually the surface of a tub rim or a shower stall floor. Examples of some pole caddies can be seen in U.S. Patents as follows: Lindo No. D635,807; Hofman et al. No Des. 417,991; and Yang et al. D569,148.
Shelves of pole caddies are most often nominally pie shape or triangle shape, and have sides which run parallel to the intersecting walls that form an inside right angle corner. Typically pole caddy shelves have a slidable collar which is set screwed to the pole at a chosen elevation, after the collar of each shelf is slipped over the end of the pole. Thus, the shelves can be removed or changed, but only by inconveniently removing the caddy from its installed location and disassembling the caddy by sliding the collar the length of the pole.
Users of shower caddies will be aware that over time they can accumulate soap scum and even mold. The typical wire basket type construction of shower caddies makes them difficult to clean because of the high surface area. It would be desirable to be able to clean shelves by power washing or washing in a dishwasher. That suggests that the shelves of pole caddies should be conveniently removable. However, the shelves of welded-wire hanging caddies cannot be disassembled. Thus, there ought to be better options for conveniently and thoroughly cleaning shelves than is enabled by the predominate styles of prior art pole caddies.
The foregoing limitations have been addressed in a way by the pole caddy described in Emery et al. Patent Publication 2012/0217215. A pole caddy having a split plastic collar (called a clip) is held in clamped position on a pole by a wire loop that is part of the rear of the shelf, thereby also supporting the shelf from the collar. The shelf can be detached, if desired, but doing that also releases the collar from its previously selected location.
Well-designed pole caddies and hanging caddies ought to provide shelves with adequate storage space and adequate vertical spacing. If the shelves or other parts of the shower caddy are detachable, the caddy should be structural stable during use. And there is always a desire to have things which are more compact and easier and less costly to store and ship.
So, there is need for an improvement in caddy construction which provides more ease of shelf removal for cleaning or replacement, and to enable more compact packaging and shipping.